As previously reported by Quarry, Yeppoon Road Quarry’s operators Vynque – a private Australian company located in Yeppoon, Queensland – applied to the Rockhampton Regional Council to expand its existing hard rock quarry in Norman Gardens by an additional 18ha.
Although the application proposed an 18ha expansion within the 66.79ha site, production was to remain unchanged at roughly 240,000 tonnes per annum (tpa).
A development application (DA) was lodged in August 2015 and the council granted preliminary conditional approval in August 2017. However, the following month the council advised the DA was “subject to conditions” as it “conflicted” with the Rockhampton Region Planning Scheme.
The conditions included capping the operator to only be able to extract 200,000 tpa and complete additional roadworks around the quarry’s access sites.
As reported by the Rockhampton Morning Bulletin, the quarry’s operators argued there was no “purpose or imperative” that required extraction to be restricted to 200,000 tpa.
The operators also reportedly argued that the roadworks required to access the site were “not reasonably required as a result of the extension of the operation area”.
It is understood the council requested the quarry’s operators to utilise an additional access point for the quarry, despite the quarry’s historical access point (known as access three) providing a “superior traffic engineering solution”.
"[Entry] via access three would not undermine the safety and efficient operation of the road network,” appeal documents stated.
"The ancillary works required to utilise access two is an unnecessary and unreasonable requirement in circumstances where access three is an appropriate traffic engineering solution.”
The appeal was lodged in Brisbane’s Planning and Environment Court on 18 October.
Quarry contacted the operator for additional information but had not received a response at time of publication.
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